I'm glad someone's brought this topic up because it's been worrying me since I moved here.
Cream that I buy over here (and there's not a lot of choice - no extra thick double or clotted etc) has best before dates for about 2 months in the future! I couldn't work out how come it could last so well but from what you guys have been saying, it's because it's ultra pasteurised, not because it's pumped full of chemicals? Bread doesn't go off either and I'm thinking that has to be because of preservatives...
The other thing I just noticed today is that some sliced ham I bought a couple of days ago is best before 10th October. You what?!!! 2 months shelf life for cold ham?! The scary thing is that I don't know how on earth they are making it last so long. What is in it?
I have also noticed that fresh fruit and vegetables don't last as long as I remember them doing in the UK. Onions are mouldy within a week, a red pepper that I bought lasted 3 days before I was chopping bits of it off and throwing them away, potatoes go mouldy quickly and so on. Has anyone else noticed this? The adverts for Safeway over here claim that all fresh produce is checked 5 times before it is put up for sale. Personally I wish they'd check it once and get it on the darn shelves before it goes off!
Anyway, one possible reason that I thought of for the fruit and veg is the habit that they have over here of spraying everything with water on the supermarket shelves. You then stick your wet produce in a plastic bag. That can't be good for it, surely?
